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A New York Times Notable Book • Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • A New York Times Bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by Smithsonian, Scientific American, and Elle • Winner of the Porchlight Business Book Award

“A bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world . . . With Empire of AI, Hao is fundamentally shaping many people’s perceptions and understanding of the company at the center of the AI revolution.” —TIME Magazine, “TIME100 AI 2025”

“Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times

“Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.” —Vulture

From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy

When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?

Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?

Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.

This book is intended for everybody who is interested in starting and/or pursuing a career as Design Thinking moderator. This book captures knowledge from hundreds of workshops delivered by two moderators who don’t only live on the opposite side of the world (Bernard - Australia / Sean - Austria) but also build their Design Thinking profession on very different foundations. Bernard Shockman is a self employee design thinker in lives in Australia. Sean Mc Guire from Austria works as UX Architect for Microsoft one of the larges tech companies in the world. This book was carefully crafted to capture those two very different views (self-employee / corporate world) and needs when heading for a career in Design Thinking but the one thing that’s common is the Billboard Design Thinking approach both moderators apply successfully for several hundred customer projects all over the world. No matter if you are a proficient moderator or you are new in this domain you will find valuable insights and a complete method including templates, checklists and real case studies to let you explore and understand the Billboard Design Thinking approach. There is no prior knowledge required if you want to start your moderator career! You will find every detailed explained on 523 pages with hundreds of illustration and images from workshops and .If there is one thing we are really keen on than it’s “You beeing successful” as a Design Thinking moderator! You will rarely find a book where moderators will share all their knowledge especially because most moderators think they need to carefully hide and protect their secret success formula. This might let you wonder why would we be keen on sharing our knowledge with you a potential competitor on the job market?And the answer is super simple: there are millions of projects failing all over the world every year. Even if 100.000 moderators take our knowledge and enter the job marked there will still be a huge amount of work for everybody to do. The reality is that less than 50% of all projects are successful and Design Thinking is one of the best ways to ensure successful projects and ensure management will get a proper ROI and investments are protected. We sincerely wish you as moderator much success in live and hope you can find a view takeaways to improve your moderation skills or start a successful Billboard Design Thinking career and help organizations and project teams to deliver successful projects all over the world. Happy Design Thinking. Sean & Bernard - New Years Eve 2020

For more information check our Billboard Design Thinking LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8780360/

Sean LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-mcguire-3a42803b/

Bernard LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardschokman/

Award-winning entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow reveals the counterintuitive reasons why so many partnerships and groups break down--and why some break through.The best teams are more than the sum of their parts, but why does collaboration so often fail to fulfill this promise? In Dream Teams,...

This study examines the developmental interactions between Japanese senseis (mentors) and early American leaders at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK). More specifically, this study examines why and how these early American leaders transitioned from the initiation phase of a mentor relationship to the active and transforma- tional participation of the cultivation phase. This research identifies characteristics of developmental interactions so that other leaders and mentors can effectively adapt Toyo- ta-style management practices and thinking.

Though the professionalization of Toyota Production Systems (TPS), also known as lean manufacturing, or sim- ply lean, has proven to be vast, the success rate of emula- tion and adaptation of sustained TPS has been low. One of the many problems that organizations face when adapting TPS is executive resistance and misunderstanding of lean management and leadership (Emiliani, 2018; Sherman, 1994). Toyota faced a similar problem of resistance when it hired leaders from other automotive companies into Toyota during the initial years at TMMK. Understanding how Toy- ota overcame this resistance offers insight into better mento- ring for adapting TPS.

This study performs qualitative interviews using oral history and grounded theory techniques. It specifically identifies characteristics of the transition from the initiation to cultivation phases of mentor relationships within TMMK from 1986 to 1992. This research illustrates how leaders who never before experienced the Toyota culture experienced transformation within mentor relationships, which enabled them to adopt Toyota's frame of reference for solving prob-lems and ultimately Toyota's culture. The findings may prove adaptable and beneficial for other leaders and execu- tives adopting TPS.

The Daily Pursuit of Excellence is one of the best leadership books to help you maximize your personal effectiveness, influence people, improve organizational efficiency, and develop a culture of excellence in your company. The learnings from 50 years of experience are summarized in the 4 key principles for achieving superior performance-leadership, people, systems, and culture.

The principles enable rapid transformation in any organization. Through personal stories and experiences, a proven roadmap is provided for demonstrating strong leadership to create a culture of excellence that matches the expectations of the organization. In today's competitive environment, individuals and organizations must be best-in-class to compete and win.

Smolik's book describes a practical way to be a results-focused leader and drive improvement in safety, reliability, quality, and the customer experience.

The book summarizes best practices in a manner that readers can easily understand and implement. A clear roadmap is provided for how to design, utilize, and maintain a good management system and to create a strong culture that provides consistency in performance and productivity. Simplicity is a prevailing theme throughout the book.

What can you control?

What do you do when you’re under pressure, overwhelmed, and ready to get what you really want? As one of the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilots in the US Navy, as well as a mom, wife, business consultant, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and global speaker, author Carey Lohrenz knows that the stress we experience can be just as intense as the stress in the cockpit of a fighter jet going Mach 2. But she’s got a secret weapon to prevail: years of training to overcome the specific natures of uncertainty, stress, burnout, anxiety, and pressure.

At our core, we know we’ve lost control. We’ve lost our grip on what we really want and who we really want to be. In order to solve the challenges of chaos and make our goals, dreams, and commitments a reality, we have to understand that in order to succeed when the pressure is on and to improve our performance overall, we’ve got to know what we can and cannot control.

In Span of Control, Lohrenz walks us through the fundamentals of surviving and succeeding during times of crisis. Weaving together eye-opening science, gripping personal stories, insightful interviews, prescriptive advice, and a high-octane dose of encouragement and practicality, Span of Control helps leaders recognize how to focus on what matters most, formulate a plan for success, and communicate what’s possible.